It’s a book almost everyone has heard of, few have actually read and some want banned altogether.

Adolf Hitler’s two-volume, turgid and often boring Mein Kampf remains as divisive as ever – pitting those who never want to see it published because it glorifies the Third Reich against those who say banning it only heightens its perverse attraction.

In Canada there has been a debate about whether it should be sold in Chapters, after the company banned it. In the United States there has been controversy over the profits from its sale, prompting the publisher to donate all proceeds to charity. But nowhere has the debate been more intense than in Germany which is facing the prospect of seeing copies of Mein Kampf published in the country for the first time since Hitler’s death at the end of the Second World War.

The state of Bavaria has held the copyright on the book since 1945, after assuming the rights from the Nazi publishing house. Since then it has blocked any publication of it in Germany. Technically Mein Kampf is not banned, because copies are readily available online and millions of originals are still floating around the country from the days when the book was mandatory reading and the Nazis gave copies to all newlyweds. But the prohibition on publication has been an important symbol of Germany’s fight against extremism.

Now the government is in a bind. Under German law, a copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author, meaning that after 2015 anyone can print a copy of Mein Kampf.

In response, the government announced last year that it would work with a group of historians at Munich’s Institute of Contemporary History and publish an annotated version to coincide with the expiration of the copyright.

The new version would have extensive critical commentary to offset Hitler’s theories and the plan initially won wide support, including the backing of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

But last week the government abruptly cancelled the project, citing complaints from some Holocaust survivors. It also announced plans to try to stop any attempt to publish the book after the copyright expires.

The decision stunned the institute and set up a showdown with the historians who vowed to press ahead. “We will certainly continue with that project,” said the institute’s director Andreas Wirsching, who added that funding will be found elsewhere. “I think we need a sort of reference, scientific reference, of this text which is a very important historical source. We need a sort of reference which attracts attention and which doesn’t allow others to publish less serious work.”

The institute’s position is shared by Doris Bergen, a professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Toronto, who says the mythology around Mein Kampf needs to be addressed. But she also understands why many liberal democracies have had difficulty making it widely available.

“Hitler has really become for so many people the symbol of evil, of humanity’s destructive behaviour, of genocide, of the murder of the Jews,” she said. “Hitler is the symbol, the embodiment of all that and Mein Kampf is the text that reflects or captures the notion of Hitler as the source of evil. So it makes sense that that touches a nerve.”

There is also “a mythology around it,” she added, “Like no one could resist it, it’s so compelling. Well, the fact is people could and can resist it but I think it has become a symbol of this terrible evil, this hatred, this ideology that drove people to do such horrific things.”

Prof. Bergen hails the work of the institute and believes an annotated version will help people to better read and understand the book. “There’s all kinds of terrible stuff out there in the world and it’s important that people be aware of it, read it, study it, and know how to analyze it …You can’t let extremists drive the decisions that you make. I think you’ve got to let your principles drive the decision.”

Not so, says Clemens Heni, director of the Berlin International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. He backs the Bavarian government’s decision to scrap the project and stop publication of the book. “Mein Kampf is a very dangerous book,” he said. “Anti-Semitism is again on the rise in Germany and we don’t need this book to be printed.”

Mr. Heni added that scholars who want to read Mein Kampf can already do it in an academic setting. And he pointed to strong sales of the book in Turkey, the Middle East and Malaysia as a worrying trend. “Germany has no free speech and for good reason. We know in Germany and Austria where free speech can lead to: National Socialism.”

Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, is also worried that furthering the availability of Mein Kampf will fuel extremism. “The political environment in Europe today, with the rise of neo-Nazi and racist parties, is trying to create a new wave of hate and violence by mimicking the genocidal movements of the past. Mein Kampf plays a primary role in this regression and therefore we must prevent this from happening,” he said in an e-mail. “As we have learned in the past, democracy needs to protect itself. Publishing this book is again a threat to democracy and a boost to Nazism, hate and racism.”

Whether the historians’ book ever hits the shelves is unclear. Both the institute and the Bavarian government believe the public is on their side and the debate shows no sign of slowing down.

Some like Isabell Zacharias, a Socialist member of the Bavarian legislature, are convinced the state has a responsibility to not only publish the annotated version but teach it in schools as well. “The book must be discussed in schools and universities with a clear message,” she said in an e-mail. “No more war from the German territory and no fascism.”

You might think from reading this that Clemens Heni was just the typical left-wing multicultist. But no. A Google search on his name reveals that he is part of the Counterjihad movement, or rather CounterJewhad movement.

Right-wing and Left-wing Trojan Horses by Dr. Clemens Heni January 9, 2013
The new year 2013 will be a very important year in the struggle against the Iranian threat.

After his fellowship at YIISA, Heni began work on a project examining German Middle Eastern studies and Islamism after 9/11, funded by the Middle East Forum Educational Fund in Philadelphia, directed by Dr. Daniel Pipes. The report will be published in 2011 in German, and is intended as part of a book on Middle Eastern studies marking the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

He has argued that antisemitism is unique and taken great pains to distinguish it from "islamophobia". As I have noted before, the claim that antisemitism is a unique phenomenon, and somehow quintessentially distinct from other forms of prejudice that operate against minorities living in the midst of majorities, is just an indirect expression of the myth of the Jews as a Chosen People. It takes debate from the realm of reason to the realm of the supernatural.

The Oriental Mind wishes us to see the world as a titanic struggle between the forces of Good and Evil. Events occur because of supernatural agency. Debate largely consists of accusing opponents of being on the wrong side of this imaginary anathema line separating the goodies from the baddies. The European Mind, by contrast, insists that the world is explicable in rational terms, and commits itself to seeking that explanation by collecting and analysing the evidence.

Heni is not himself Jewish but his work has been eagerly picked up by the network of Jewish organisations that exist to amplify and propagate the Jewish point of view, including some of those that would loosely be considered part of the Counterjihad movement, such as the one run by Daniel Pipes. This panoply of propaganda agencies is certainly an impressive phenomenon. It seems the passport to recognition in this network is simply to take up and regurgitate traditional Jewish prejudices, reinforcing the victim-based siege mentality and the anti-European hate memes. Conversely, the way to find yourself cast out in the wilderness is to critically comment on Jewish behaviour, as the CounterJewhad's movement recent anathema against me has made very clear.

It's impossible not to notice how intellectually limited many of the contributions this propaganda network produces are. Bat Ye'or's book Eurabia, for example, is really, at its heart, no better than a half-baked internet essay that a medium-grade blogger might churn out in a few days, in between work shifts and favourite TV episodes. Yet it fitted Jewish prejudices so perfectly - attacking Islam and attributing the islamisation of the West to a an evil European and Arab plot against the Jews! - that the Jewish influence network picked it up, encouraged her to expand it, then printed it and propagated it, establishing it as at least part of the public thoughtspace in a way that is grossly out of proportion to the quality of its analysis or evidentiary base.

This network of Jewish institutions regularly highlights the encroachments on free speech Islamic influence is bringing about. Here, for example, Soeren Kern, writing for the Jewish-owned (see here and here) Gatestone Institute titles a recent essay "OIC blames free speech for 'Islamophobia' in the West" as if this claim was absurd on its face, which, of course, it is, yet the very same individuals would have no quibble with the same statement if the word 'antisemitism' was simply substituted for 'Islamophobia'. Nowhere in this endless stream of propaganda is there is the slightest acknowledgement that prior Jewish activism smoothed the path for the Muslims by making the first breach in the wall of free speech, establishing Holocaust denial laws and propagating the notion that there is such a thing as a unique, quasi-mystical prejudice ("antisemitism", "Islamophobia") that sits apart from the normal behaviourally conditioned stimulus/response mechanisms of the human psyche.

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comments:

Anonymous
said...

That's about it for me and I'm sure others as well. I'll do what I can to get the word out. You are a certified lunatic. You finally drank the "its-them-Jews" potion and now join the ranks of other dumbasses that are destroying the movement, such as it is. You cannot be taken seriously anymore. Farewell dumbass....

You failed to provide a single explanation as to why CZ is a "dumbass". And "the movement", for many, is a struggle against alien hostility towards people of European descent, which encompasses well-documented Jewish hostility. Good riddance to you, and I, for one, will continue visiting this site daily.

If someone wants to take a position, that's fine, but this lack of consistency is so irritating. The Koran contains more antisemitism than Mein Kampf, and has contributed to more genocide than Hitler could dream of. It would take cajones to try and ban that, something these people can't even dream of.

Anonymous 00:10 You are correct. The Talmud is full of slanders against Jesus Christ, Christians and non Jews. www.revisionisthistory.org/talmudtruth.html It is also correct to say that this whole attack on freedom of speech started with the laws against the holocaust revisionists which were orchestrated by Jews. Of course they are talking out of both sides of their mouths. Out of one side they say that the revisionists are fools and nobody should listen to them. Out of the other side they say that what the revisionists say is so dangerous they should be locked up! Try looking at what the holocaust revisionists have to say in their own words. Look at the following links. If you are in the EU and you cannot access them because of government interference then ask yourself what have they got to hide.www.holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?main_page=2http://codoh.com/library/categories/1167

The only people who read the Talmud are too busy ass-raping their kids to worry about the gentile. However, perhaps all religious texts should be sterilized of their tribal prejudices before being sold in the EU. Still, a nebbish with a grudge is hardly in the same league as a mullah with a grenade.

"Anonymous said...The only people who read the Talmud are too busy ass-raping their kids to worry about the gentile. However, perhaps all religious texts should be sterilized of their tribal prejudices before being sold in the EU."All laws under which the Western world has been destroyed are talmudic laws, such as your thinking that all religions must go, when in fact it is just judaism that must be removed from our world.